Blog

By Robert Creamer
Political organizer, strategist and author

My wife, Jan Schakowsky, and I are friends with a wonderful woman named Bea. Bea is now 95 years old. Bea was born in 1917.

She was born in a country where women couldn’t vote. In some areas of the country, just fifty years before, slavery had been legal. Collective bargaining was not recognized under the law. Poverty was rampant — especially among the country’s oldest citizens.

Bea was born in a country where there was an unimaginable gulf between a few fabulously wealthy oligarchs, and the masses of ordinary people. It was a country where only a tiny fraction of the population ever went to college — or even graduated from high school — a country were hardly anyone was considered “middle class.” It was a country where there were few regulations to protect health and safety on the job, no national child labor laws, no federal minimum wage, and very little to prevent corporations from recklessly destroying the environment.

Bea was born in a country where people of color were considered second-class citizens and discrimination against them was enshrined into law — a country where gays and homosexuals could be prosecuted for their sexual orientation.

Bea was born in the United States of America.

Over her lifetime, Bea has been involved in many of the great social movements of our time — movements that helped transform our country into the envy of the world.

She was active building the labor unions that build the middle class. won a living wage, weekends and a 40-hour work week, pensions for retirement, and the passage of Social Security and Medicare that ensured a retirement free of poverty.

She marched with the civil rights movement that gave people of color an equal status in American society.

Bea became a public school teacher and helped educate an ever-expanding number of ordinary Americans — watching more and more of them go on to college to fulfill their dreams.

She was part of the women’s movement that demanded equal status and equal pay for women — as well as the right for women to control their own decisions about contraception and abortion.

This year, Bea — at 95 years old — is working on a phone bank to turn out voters for Barack Obama. She says that if Mitt Romney and the Republican Right win the election on Tuesday, they have made clear that they absolutely intend to destroy all of the things for which she has struggled her entire life. She’s right.

Mitt Romney has demonstrated over the years that he has only one real core value: his own success.

Throughout his career, Mitt has demonstrated that he will do whatever is necessary to benefit himself — and his investors. At Bain Capital he didn’t flinch when it came to destroying other people’s jobs and lives if it would make him and his investors money.

Now his “investors” are the oligarchs of the Republican Right — people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson — who, between them, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get him elected. Many are the same people who funded the Tea Party movement. Others are the Wall Street hedge fund barons whose recklessness collapsed the economy and came very close to recreating a Great Depression.

These people — and their Tea Party allies in Congress — have shown the country that they have no intention of compromise. They are intent upon rolling back all of the things Bea has fought for — on sending us back to the Gilded Age. They truly believe that America would be a better place without labor unions. They want to eliminate Medicare and replace it with vouchers of ever-shrinking value that pay private insurance companies. (more…)

In New Jersey, as Barack Obama and Chris Christie met last week to survey the devastation Hurricane Sandy caused, the President placed a reassuring hand on the heartsick governor’s shoulder. Later, the President embraced storm victim Donna Vanzant in Brigantine, N.J., and told her and all East Coast residents that he and the nation “are here for you.”

Here for you means the federal government would muster all its resources to help Americans devastated by a deadly hurricane to restore some sense of normalcy to their upturned lives and to help rebuild their homes and communities.

Americans unfailingly rally to the aid of those in need. A youngster helps grandma across the street. A community builds a wheelchair ramp for an injured veteran. Sometimes, though, the tragedy is too massive for the scale of help that families and neighborhoods can provide. Then Americans turn to the federal government to help them deliver safety and solace. This is among the most profound and basic duties of government. Barack Obama has insisted that it be performed well because he believes government can be – and must be – a force for good.
President Barack Obama greets New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on arriving in Atlantic City after Hurricane Sandy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It’s not a matter of big government or small government. Although, frankly, a government small enough to drown in a bathtub, as Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist seeks, would not be large enough to respond to catastrophes such as Sandy’s destruction across 15 states or to the 750 tornadoes that ripped through the South and Midwest, including Joplin, Mo., in April and May last year. And a federal government that fobbed off responsibility for emergency management to the states or to private enterprise, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he wanted to do during the GOP primary debates, would not be prepared to respond adequately to American catastrophes.

Romney has walked back those statements now, contending after Sandy hit that he wouldn’t eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But the nation has seen what happens when a president is careless about the federal government helping Americans during emergencies. That would be, specifically, former President Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

First, Bush chose patronage over qualifications in naming a FEMA director, appointing to the post an Arabian Horse Association functionary who had absolutely no experience or training in emergency management. Then when Katrina hit, the administration virtually ignored it – failing to respond to pleas for help from desperate governors and mayors; failing to cut short vacations, or even meals, to work on hurricane response, failing to provide available federal resources as Americans died in the Superdome.

In stark contrast, Obama demanded credentials when he selected his FEMA director. He went so far as to ignore party affiliation – appointing William Craig Fugate, a Republican. Fugate, who began his career as a firefighter and paramedic, was director of the Florida emergency management agency – a position that exposed him to rigors of responding to disasters, particularly hurricanes. (more…)

By Robert Reich
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley

By now, in these last remaining days before the election of 2012, we have learned enough about the beliefs of the Republican presidential candidate to see them as a worldview all its own — a kind of creed that explains Mitt Romney. Those who say he has no principles are selling him short.

Despite its contradictions and ellipses, Romneyism has an internal coherence. It is different from conservatism, because it does not intend to conserve or protect any particular institutions or values. It is also distinct from Republicanism, in that it is not rooted in traditional small-town American values, nationalism, or states’ rights.

The ten guiding principles of Romneyism are:

1. Corporations are the basic units of society. Corporations are people, and the overriding purpose of an economy is to maximize corporate profits. When profits are maximized, the economy grows fastest. This growth benefits everyone in the form greater output, better products and services, and higher share prices.

2. Workers are a means to the goal of maximizing corporate profits. If workers do not contribute to that goal, they should be fired. If they cannot then find other work that helps maximize profits in another company, their wages must be too high, and they must therefore accept steadily lower wages until they find a job.

3. All factors of production — capital, physical plant and equipment, workers — are fungible and should be treated the same. Any that fail to deliver high competitive returns should be replaced or discarded. This keeps an economy efficient. Fairness is and should be irrelevant.

4. Pollution, unsafe products, unsafe working conditions, financial fraud, and other negative side effects of the pursuit of profits are the price society pays for profit-driven growth. They should not be used as excuses to constrain the pursuit of profits through regulation. (more…)

By Scott N. Paul
Director, AAM

In this “Jobs Election,” voters deserve to know the truth about the U.S. auto industry. The Obama Administration’s auto rescue preserved hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs in America, and didn’t send Jeep jobs to China. Otherwise, I’d be among the first to call them on it.

It’s bad enough that Mitt Romney’s paid advertisements aren’t telling the truth about the auto rescue. Even worse is what his own policies could mean for keeping auto jobs in America.

Mitt Romney might not have actually written the words “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” but his statements against the auto rescue could have set the stage for “Let China Own Detroit.” There’s a very real chance that under Mitt Romney’s plan for the American auto industry in 2009, GM and Chrysler could have been bought by the Chinese — before or after liquidation. Heavily subsidized firms in China were among the most active players in asset acquisition and capital markets at that time; few others had the cash. When given the opportunity, Chinese firms did buy Volvo and wanted to buy GM’s Hummer before the deal fell apart in 2010.

President Obama, in addition to the auto rescue, has taken several important steps to keep auto and supply chain jobs in America. He battled a surge of Chinese tire imports in 2009, which Romney opposed. In September, the President launched a World Trade Organization case against unfair trade practices in China’s auto and auto parts sectors, which Romney mocked but otherwise ignored. Yes, Mitt Romney has pledged to crack down on China’s currency manipulation — a move I welcome — but the positions he has taken on real-world attempts to create a level playing field for American workers and businesses have fallen woefully short.

While China won’t be shipping cars to the U.S. in large quantities any time soon, the facts in the auto parts sector are quite different. China’s market penetration in the United States has increased by 25 percent each of the past two years. Our annual auto parts trade deficit with China is now over $10 billion. We can’t afford to let China’s cheating disrupt the stunning recovery underway in America’s auto sector.

American brands are popular in China. But only 150,000 of the 18 million autos sold in China last year were made in America. That’s because the Chinese government has a policy: “If you want to sell it here, you must make it here.” It’s one of the reasons why Jeep has plans to manufacture in China. And, it’s why President Obama has launched a trade case against China on these auto restrictions. Like me, he’d rather see Jeeps stamped “Made in America” and shipped to China. (more…)

He’s not known for personality. But when challenged, Mitt Romney reveals his personality disorder — a mean, sometimes visibly repressed temper. Why does he get so angry? Is it just because he’s an entitled rich kid who could use some anger management? Or is there something seriously wrong with him that should be watched with concern?

Robert Borosage
Co-Director Campaign for America's Future

After months of campaigning and hundreds of millions in advertising, voters and commentators still seem uncertain about Mitt Romney. Is he the “severe conservative” of the primaries, or the moderate of the last days eager to reach across the aisle? Does he have core beliefs or is he prepared to shift anything to appeal to his audience? Does he think he gets away with peddling lies without shredding his credibility?

It’s useful to remember the obvious. The flip-flops on social issues, the lies and distortions, the empty five-point plan recycled from previous Republican campaigns don’t reveal it. The truth is much simpler.

Romney is the candidate of, by and for the 1 percent. He is a plutocrat peddling the agenda of the plutocracy.

The Plutocracy’s Agenda

Step back from the partisan posturing and political rhetoric for a moment. Ask yourself a simple question. What is the agenda of the richest Americans? What would they want to consolidate their position?

In every case, Romney takes up their cause.

Tax Breaks for Wealth

The top 1 percent possesses more wealth than 90 percent of Americans. Obviously, if you are wealthy, you want to reduce taxes on wealth. So Romney advocates eliminating the estate tax, a tax that applies only to the estates of multimillionaires. This would ensure that the concentrated wealth is passed on from generation to generation.

Tax Breaks for High Income

The top 1 percent pocket about 24 percent of the country’s annual income. They prefer lower taxes on high incomes. So Romney advocates a 20 percent cut in tax rates across the board, including for the top 1 percent.

But the real deal is income from wealth. The wealthiest 0.1 percent (about 315,000 people) collect fully half of all income from capital gains, now taxed at 15 percent. Romney would sustain the lower rate of taxation for capital gains and dividends. He even defends the obscene “carried interest” tax dodge that allows private equity billionaires to pay income from their fees at the lower capital gains rate. Not surprisingly, he opposes the Buffett Rule that requires millionaires to pay at least the same rate as their secretaries.

Tax Breaks for Corporations

The wealthiest Americans naturally want lower taxes on the companies that help generate their wealth. So Romney advocates lowering the corporate tax rate, while closing unspecified loopholes to pay for it. More importantly, he supports a “territorial tax system,” that would eliminate any U.S. taxes on profits made or reported abroad. This essentially turns the entire world into a potential tax haven for multinationals, encouraging them to move jobs or report income abroad.

Deregulation of Finance

The 1 percent cleaned up as Wall Street inflated the housing bubble, selling complicated derivatives and mortgage-backed securities to gouge municipalities, pension funds or German banks. After the crash, the wealthiest 1 percent emerged from the ruins capturing over 90 percent of national income growth. So naturally, they want to reopen the casino.

The bank lobby has been hard at work trying to weaken the Dodd-Frank financial reforms signed into law in 2010. Romney goes a step further, promising to repeal the reforms and replace them with undisclosed weaker regulation.

More Corporate Trade Accords

With multinationals defining our trade policy, globalization has been a boon to the 1 percent. Trade accords like NAFTA have helped make the world safe for global investors. Shipping good jobs abroad or threatening to do so has helped suppress demands for wage hikes here at home. So naturally, Romney promises more trade accords as part of his five-point plan. (He also pledges to get tough with China, but it is very hard to see this as anything other than a political posture for Ohio voters. Bain Capital was a pathbreaker in offshoring jobs to China. ) And needless to say, he opposes any measures that might give workers greater ability to organize and bargain collectively. (more…)

By Greg Balast
Investigative journalist and best-selling author

For Mitt Romney, it’s one scary Halloween.  The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon he will charged with violating the federal Ethics in Government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bail-out.

By Richard Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

Nothing illustrates the choice between the two presidential candidates better than the 2009 rescue of the auto industry. And, despite Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s efforts to distort the contrast with patently dishonest claims and a new TV ad, the auto rescue may turn out to be the deciding factor in the presidential election.

Romney can’t seem to Etch-a-Sketch that now-famous op-ed headline — “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Let’s break down what that meant: Here was a millionaire whose idea of remaking America’s automakers was liquidation. It was a call for those companies to gut pay and benefits and shed pensions. That’s what Mitt Romney believed in. His goal was to “turn around” the industry by killing good jobs.

Try as he might, Romney can’t shake his past, and nowhere is that more clear than in voters’ reactions in Ohio, where the auto industry accounts for one out of eight jobs. There voters have stuck with President Obama after he stuck his neck out to rescue those ailing giants and the workers, who together form America’s cornerstone industry.

Because of President Obama’s action, the U.S. auto industry was not liquidated. Two million jobs or more were not lost or ruined.

Yes, President Obama took a big political risk — the public had serious bailout fatigue.

Back in 2008 and 2009, pundits and reporters from Fox News to the New York Times called the auto industry rescue a “strategy fraught with risk.”

It wasn’t the only time President Obama took action and risks for working people, and I’ll bet it won’t be the last. And I’ll also bet that Romney’s reaction to crises for working people will be the same in the future, too. When President Obama enforced our trade laws, imposing tariffs on cheap Chinese tires to protect American jobs, Mitt Romney leaped in to criticize him.

Expecting Mitt Romney to get tough on China is like asking his left hand to slap his right.

Ohio knows we need a president who makes job creation his No. 1 priority — and we need those jobs in the United States, not in other countries.

Few politicians today are courageous enough to stand with teachers and construction workers and other regular folks against the wails of Wall Street and the advice of CEOs like Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney wants us on the low road to jobs — outsourcing all the good ones until even the minimum wage seems high.

Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, called him “a car guy.” That’s hard to understand, but what is clear is that Romney is not a jobs guy. (more…)